PeaceCon 2024: Status Quo No More
Building Peace in a Time of Rising Violent Conflict
Amid a global rise in fragility and violence, including a deepening war in Ukraine and crisis in the Middle East, the peacebuilding community is navigating a dramatically evolving conflict landscape. New trends like artificial intelligence and environmental disruptions could cause large-scale shocks and violence. Meanwhile, a general decline in social cohesion and trust is complicating the resolution of violent conflicts. The rise of a wide array of new actors — both state and nonstate — is bringing forth a multipolar world, and new global fault lines are emerging. Despite these new challenges and shifts, the peacebuilding community has an opportunity to leverage scalable, evidence-based and locally led solutions to prevent and reduce conflict drivers while helping to build more sustainable peace and resiliency.
Charting a way forward for the peacebuilding community will require reframing peacebuilding in ways that are actionable, practical and results-oriented. It will require more effectively and urgently building champions among communities of policymakers, business leaders, bilateral and multilateral donors, the nonprofit sector, and the broader public.
On September 10, USIP and the Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP) hosted the 12th annual PeaceCon, the premier global gathering designed to address contemporary challenges in peacebuilding and conflict resolution. This year’s conference focused on the theme “Status Quo No More: Building Peace in a Time of Rising Violent Conflict” and brought together senior officials, thought leaders, policymakers and practitioners from around the globe to explore and tackle the challenges facing the peacebuilding community.
Take part in the conversation on social media using #PeaceCon2024 and #StatusQuoNoMore.
PeaceCon Day 1 is hosted by USIP on September 10. To learn more about Days 2 and 3 of PeaceCon 2024, please visit AfP’s website.
Agenda
12:00-12:15pm | Welcome & Opening Remarks
- Ambassador George E. Moose
Acting President, U.S. Institute of Peace - Alan Fitts
Board Chair, Alliance for Peacebuilding; Vice President, Strategy and Operations and Chief of Staff, Corporate Affairs and Communications, American Express - Liz Hume
Executive Director, Alliance for Peacebuilding
12:15-1:30pm | Keynote & Fireside Chat – Building Bridges to Peace in Northern Ireland: From the Good Friday Agreement and Beyond
- Mary McAleese, keynote
Former President of Ireland - Ambassador Miguel Diaz, moderator
Board Member, Alliance for Peacebuilding; John Courtney Murray University Chair in Public Service at Loyola University Chicago; former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See
1:30-2:15pm | Opening Plenary – Advancing the Peacebuilding Field: Status Quo No More
- Ambassador George E. Moose
Acting President, U.S. Institute of Peace - Shamil Idriss
CEO, Search for Common Ground - Peter van Sluijs
Peacebuilding and Conflict Prevention Expert, Cordaid; Coordinator, Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding - Liz Hume, moderator
Executive Director, Alliance for Peacebuilding
2:15-2:30pm | Break
2:30-3:45pm | Concurrent Sessions
- Countering Foreign Malign Influence to Strengthen Peaceful International Development
- What is the Future of Measuring Peace? Integrating Lessons Learned from Scholarship and Practice
- Strengthening the Humanitarian-Development-Peace-Private Sector Nexus to Achieve SDG16+
- Emerging Powers in Mediation: The New Landscape of International Conflict Resolution (Watch on YouTube)
- Nimet Beriker
Lecturer, Columbia University - Cecily Brewer
Senior Expert, U.S. Institute of Peace - Andrea Prah
Senior Researcher, African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) - Sasha Pippenger, moderator
Acting Director, Inclusive Peace Processes and Reconciliation, U.S. Institute of Peace
3:45-4:00pm | Break
4:00-5:00pm | Closing Plenary: The Global Fragility Act and the Way Forward
- Anne Witkowsky
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, U.S. Department of State - Joe McMenamin
Principal Director in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Stabilization Policy, U.S. Department of Defense - Brittany Brown
Acting Assistant to the Administrator, Bureau of Conflict Prevention and Stabilization, USAID - Michele J. Sison
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Organization Affairs, U.S. Department of State - Joseph Sany, moderator
Vice President, Africa Center, U.S. Institute of Peace - Ambassador George E. Moose, closing remarks
Acting President, U.S. Institute of Peace
